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Senior Member
Location: San Diego, CA
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Re: How Harvey packs banana plants for shipping
In general, in California, if you sell a plant you are required to have a nursery license ($$). In many states, any plant shipped in, regardless of whether it is a gift ($0) or a purchase (for $), must have at a minimum, a Nursery Stock Certificate (which comes with the nursery license), and often a phtyo or snail insp certificate (almost any state south of the Mason-Dixon line, plus Oregon and Washington, and a few others - $$). If the truth were told, the overwhelming majority of all plants sold on Ebay are illegal (maybe 90% or more), if they are shipped out of state, and often if shipped in state.
Quarantine here is SD only pertains to 2 things, no movement of fruit from the quarantine area, and no movement of any plant which was in a location where the soil may have been become a host to larvae from the fruit fly. Plants that I had under my banana and cherimoya trees are fine to ship, but one which were under citrus trees, etc., to provide shade and/or conserve water, are stuck till the quarantine is over. Other option is very expensive treatment/fumigation, which must be done by licensed person and supervised by State Ag person ($$$$). I would be money ahead to trash all my affected plants, than pay for the treatment. So, they wait till quarantine is over.
Additionally, I have to be inspected for Sudden Oak Death host plants. I mistakenly told them I didn't sell grass when they told me I needed a SOD inspection. There is an ongoing monitoring for Glassy-wing sharpshooters (Pierce's Disease carriers) and the traps are changed twice a month as long as I am a nursery.
There are new snail-free-quarantine-area regs coming this fall ($$). Also coming are monitoring requirements for run off into streams, watersheds, etc. ($$) These will check not only for pesticides and fertilizer, but nitrogen originating from mulch, compost, etc. (Now that they have everyone doing using them, it has become a sin.) Essentially nothing is allowed to leave your property. A neighbor without a nursery license is not subject to any of these requirements, and in my case, is probably a bigger generator of such things than I will ever be. If rainwater carries any of those things off my property, I will have to do something about it. Every other house on the block gets a pass.
I have annual inspections for the Nursery License ($$), for my Producers certificate so I can sell at Farmer's Markets ($$), for every shipment to a state requiring ag or snail certificate ($$). You get to meet a lot of government people.
Plants going to many counties in Northern California require special labeling and a faxed notice of the shipment to the Ag person in that county so that they may inspect the package, at their discretion, because of Pierce's disease. Fig trees are theoretical carriers, so that is one more thing to deal with.
And you never know when an Ag guy/gal will show up with a new concern, program, quarantine, inspection, etc.
And don't even get me started on importing things from overseas, or even Canada and Mexico ($$ and a whole lot more).
So at some point I either have to get out of the business, or figure out how to make it a full time, paying job.
Consider that a peek behind the veil of the agriculture/nursery industry.
They'll be coming for you Harvey. ;-))
YES, if the leaves are longer than the box, i bend or fold them so they fit in the box. If you are gentile enough, it will not kill the leaf, and the plant retains more leaf surface, thus more energy for recovery. Just as I would not remove any leaf on a plant in the orchard that wasn't yellow or brown. It doesn't matter if it is folded, bent, chewed on, shredded, or whatever - green is good. Period.
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